Which language should I learn?

[java02]

Hello! My native language is Bulgarian. It's a slavic language. I have also learned English and German. And here it comes the question : "Which language should I learn next?". I have always wanted to learn Spanish or Italian, but I'm not sure which one to learn first. The Italian's pronunciation sounds me easier, but on the other side, Spanish is more useful because there are more people, who speak it, than those, who speak Italian. Russian is a good option too and it would be easy for me cause it's really similar to my native language. I am a student now, so for now I'll use the language to speak with people from other countries and whenever I travel, but in the near future it'd be very useful for me, when I apply for an university, and after that, when I search for a job. So which language do you think would be better for me to study?

P.S.
If you have other ideas for languages, which will suit me, I'd be happy to hear them.

[Xenops]

Hello! My native language is Bulgarian. It's a slavic language. I have also learned English and German. And here it comes the question : "Which language should I learn next?". I have always wanted to learn Spanish or Italian, but I'm not sure which one to learn first. The Italian's pronunciation sounds me easier, but on the other side, Spanish is more useful because there are more people, who speak it, than those, who speak Italian. Russian is a good option too and it would be easy for me cause it's really similar to my native language. I am a student now, so for now I'll use the language to speak with people from other countries and whenever I travel, but in the near future it'd be very useful for me, when I apply for an university, and after that, when I search for a job. So which language do you think would be better for me to study?

P.S.
If you have other ideas for languages, which will suit me, I'd be happy to hear them.

First of all, welcome to the forum. I hope you find this a welcoming community.

As for which language to choose, I’m afraid that’s a choice that only you can make. You have to consider how useful Spanish is compared to how much you prefer Italian. My experience is that either strong desire or strong need are most important to get you to continue the language.

[Serpent]

Consider Latin as well It's a good foundation for Spanish and Italian, and it can help you with Russian as well. (yes, the Russian vocabulary is very similar to Bulgarian, but the grammar is quite different) In the long run I don't see why you can't learn all these languages. Think of it as choosing which one you want to learn first.

As for Italian, it's not exactly an obscure language spoken by 100 people. While it's not as big as Spanish, it's very important culturally, and within Europe the usefulness is quite comparable to Spanish. Of course if you're planning to visit Latin America, learn some Spanish (and Portuguese! )

Speaking of that, I started Portuguese after Latin, and before Italian/Spanish. It's supposed to be easier to make sense of Spanish after Portuguese than vice versa

[Uncle Roger]

Bit of a radical idea, but I think French Italian and Spanish are each a better basis for either of the other two than Latin can be.

Source: Italian native, with four years of French and five of Latin.

[reineke]

Speaking of radical ideas, Turkish, Serbian, Greek, Romanian are all in your backyard. Spanish and Italian are fun sister languages.

Doing something because you feel like you should or because it's potentially useful...

Hmmm...

[bpasseri]

Hello! My native language is Bulgarian. It's a slavic language. I have also learned English and German. And here it comes the question : "Which language should I learn next?". I have always wanted to learn Spanish or Italian, but I'm not sure which one to learn first. The Italian's pronunciation sounds me easier, but on the other side, Spanish is more useful because there are more people, who speak it, than those, who speak Italian. Russian is a good option too and it would be easy for me cause it's really similar to my native language. I am a student now, so for now I'll use the language to speak with people from other countries and whenever I travel, but in the near future it'd be very useful for me, when I apply for an university, and after that, when I search for a job. So which language do you think would be better for me to study?

P.S.
If you have other ideas for languages, which will suit me, I'd be happy to hear them.

If you're planning on traveling in Europe, then after English and German I would say French would probably be the most useful language to learn next. Spanish would give you access to almost all of Latin America (minus Brazil and some Caribbean islands) and I would argue is easier/faster to learn to a conversational level than Italian. Their pronunciations are about equal in simplicity but Italian grammar is more similar to French, which is a bit more difficult at the beginning stages than Spanish (although Spanish grammar catches up in difficulty in the later stages). So I guess in summary, it really depends on where you're interested in traveling. I'm not sure how close Russian is to Bulgarian within the same language family, but there's the possibility that you could start trying to pick up some basic conversational fluency without much grunt work, whereas starting a romance family would require more effort but perhaps be more useful in the long run. Maybe start working on a Romance language depending on where you're most interested in going, and then on the side you can start looking into some native Russian materials to see whether or not you could realistically start learning it through passive means rather than sitting down with a full course or something like that. If you've already learned English and German you clearly know what works for you and how you best learn languages so I don't think you should have any problems learning whichever language you decide on. Good luck!

[Serpent]

Bit of a radical idea, but I think French Italian and Spanish are each a better basis for either of the other two than Latin can be.

Source: Italian native, with four years of French and five of Latin.

Latin is often taught atrociously at school.
For a native speaker of a Romance language it definitely makes no sense to learn Latin as an introduction, but for others it can be good This really depends more on whether the OP has any interest in linguistics or other areas where Latin is useful, such as history, biology or law.

[bpasseri]

Latin is often taught atrociously at school.
For a native speaker of a Romance language it definitely makes no sense to learn Latin as an introduction, but for others it can be good This really depends more on whether the OP has any interest in linguistics or other areas where Latin is useful, such as history, biology or law.

Any suggestions on Latin resources? I never had much interest in it in school (in the U.S. we only learn one foreign language to an abysmal level and I used up my elective during high school to actually force my school to allow me to do both French and Spanish) but now that I've studied 4 romance languages and am starting to dabble in Romanian and Catalan I think it would be cool to look at Latin as an ancestor language and see how they all connect, especially since Romanian has retained some of Latin's case system.

[Uncle Roger]

That's the thing with Latin. Most of its complexity is in the cases system. But that hasn't survived in Italian, Spanish, French or Portuguese. It is present in German and in Slavic languages (didn't know about Romanian!), but then they are not romance languages, so you can't carry over to them the vocabulary (apart from, again, Romanian).

It really depends if you just want to dabble in it for the cultural aspect, but in practical terms I think there isn't much usefulness in my opinion.

[Decidida]

Recently I started studying Haitian Creole. As I expected and as I have been warned, I am struggling to learn both Spanish and Haitian Creole at the same time. I am not willing to give up either one, though. The reasons to study Spanish are obvious. Haitian Creole continues to surprise me.

For such a widely spoken language, it is amazing how few resources there are to learn the language. The history of the country and the history of the language fascinate me. It is like Western culture wants to deny the people and their language exist.

You might latch onto a language for reasons that would mean nothing to someone else.

Just because the crowd is doing something, does not mean you should follow. Sometimes we are more likely to succeed at something others are not doing, while the crowd all competes in the same fields.